


How The Force Works

by h00l00v00



Category: The Get Down (TV)
Genre: 1970s, Art, F/M, M/M, Music, Original Characters - Freeform, Poetry, Self-Discovery, The Scandal, can you feel the funk y'all, carefree black kids, i'll do it for zeke, imma actually try poetry, nerdy black kids, regina doesn't automatically show up either, they actually don't a ra-ra relationship tag with anyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-11 22:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7910206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h00l00v00/pseuds/h00l00v00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>my contribution to this (...small...) collection of Get Down stories.</p>
<p>Made this Ra Ra centric because I love my Star Wars loving, comic book referencing, stuttering nerd, and y'all gotta love him too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Small Gestures

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if the dialogue is rough, but I don't think I'll be close to doing Ra Ra (or especially Zeke and Dizzee when I get to them) justice.
> 
> Is my OC a cop-out? Maybe...

Ra Ra Kipling had a philosophy: The Force was Everywhere, and in Everything anyone did.

Sure, he might have borrowed the idea from Mr. George Lucas, but it wasn’t like his philosophy was  _ wrong. _

It manifested sometimes in ways he almost missed. Like when Zeke would recite his latest stroke of genius while the two of them reclined against the fifth story of crumbling brown cement during the darkest hours of the night, eyes fixed upon the orange haze of the horizon, the lights of distant Manhattan the closest things they had to stars.

Or those increasingly more common nights when noise and non-stop words wouldn’t stop echoing in his head and he would walk down the short hallways of his home. Rough carpet under his feet, he would stop outside of his sister Yolanda’s room, hearing her sing a bopped up version of what used to be a slow soul song. Just, silence. And a song.  Now Yolanda was a real diva. Listening to her sing was tight, even more so than before.

Or that time Shao’s spot burned to the ground while all but Dizzee were out. The concept of The Fantastic Four Plus One could’ve died for real, right there. They could’ve lost  _ everything _ . But, Dizzee got the turntable. And all hope wasn’t lost.

Or even that moment after the fuck-up that was the party at his parents’ salon. He could’ve died because of them being the ambitious dumbasses they were, playing like they were the Grandmaster with a dumbass bootleg. He could’ve died  _ twice _ by his dad’s hand if his mom ain’t intervened. 

He thought about moments like those sometimes. Whether they were big enough to really notice or not, it always seemed as if the universe was trying to guide the The Get Down Brothers towards the right direction, wherever that was.

That’s what he thought, anyway, as he flipped through the records in the new and improved music store. Mr. John’s “Kingston Top Stop Variety Store” was gone, and in its place was Delroy Lavan’s “Motley Collection 45s”. The new shop smelled worse. Like lemons left too long in the sun.

Everything cost more, too. Guess Delroy wasn’t too accustomed to the neighborhood. He’d end up losing more than he got.

Finding what he was looking for, he pulled out the Jimmy Castor Bunch’s record “It’s Just Begun/ Put A Little Love In Your Heart”. Holding it under his left arm, he kept browsing the annoyingly unorganized stack of singles and eventually found “Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band and “I’m A Man” by the Spencer Davis Group, which he had only heard once, but it had a pretty tight bass if you asked him.

He and Shao tended to disagree a little when it came to the best songs for the best “get-downs”, but he was pretty sure these were decent enough.

Ra Ra, generally satisfied, walked up to the counter where Delroy was seated, feet crossed together over the counter. He smoked occasionally, flipping through the latest issue of “Jet”, a picture of Tina Turner reclining on the displayed on its shiny cover.

“You got your shit,  Raul? ”, he asked, a heavy Alabama drawl escaping his lips dark from cigarettes.

“My name ain’t “ _ Raul _ ”, ‘Roy,” Ra Ra started, placing his three records on the counter. Burns from cigarettes dotted the wooden counter, dried pastel chewing gum stuck fast underneath. “Slow day, huh?” he said, gesturing to the absence of people inside the shop. 

“Naw, man,” Delroy began. Delroy was older, around Shao’s age probably. He was ambitious like Shao, too. Except, where Shao was deep into music, Delroy wanted to own businesses. Become a CEO of something or another.. 

Delroy pulled his feet back from the counter, his pristine white All Stars slamming onto the ground. Placing down his magazine, he looked at Ra Ra. His tightly-curled black hair was done in two puffs, like Yolanda would have them sometimes. He wore a bright purple business suit with torn sleeves, contrasting strongly against his rosewood-colored skin. Putting out his cigarette against the wooden, counter, he quickly replaced it with two cherry lollipops.

Ra Ra ain’t never been to the Alabama. And he was pretty sure it wasn’t weird. It was probably just Delroy.

Like, he wasn’t Dizzee weird, but he was still weird.

“You sure your name ain’t Raul?” he asked, wanting to push the topic further like he always did whenever Ra Ra came in. Ever since he found out Ra Ra was a nickname, he began calling him “Raul”.

Which wasn’t his name.

His hazel eyes glanced down at Ra Ra’s findings. “That it?”

“Yeah,” Ra Ra said, hand already in his pocket, digging out money that was his. Being a member of the The Get Down Brothers meant real money coming in from their gigs. It was bitchin’.

Giving him back his change, Delroy answered Ra Ra’s previous question. “It ain’t a slow day. It’s a  _ hot _ day, ‘parently.”

“Well, it  _ is _ hot,”  Ra Ra argued, already feeling sweat travel down his back as if on cue.

Delroy laughed, a bark that started loud and booming and continued into something high pitched and wheezy. “ _ This _ is hot?” He pointed his dark hand towards the windows, his hand initially steady before shaking from his laughter. “ _ That’s _ hot?  _ Shoo! _ ”

“Yeah, man. It’s  _ hot _ ,” Ra Ra said, getting kind of irritated, knowing that Delroy was going to launch into a spiel about them Northern bitches ain’t know what hot  _ really _ means.

“Y’all ain’t know what hot  _ really means _ , little man. It be a hun’ed degrees where I’m from down there. Ain’t no one falling from heat.  _ Shoo! _ It’s cold up here.”

Ra Ra figured there was a little truth to that statement, Southern temperature ideology be damned. He’d been in this shop for a few weeks now and he hadn’t seen Delroy sweat  _ once _ .

“Whatever, man,”  Ra Ra said, grabbing his three records. “See you ‘round,”

“Hey,” Delroy called out. “You into aliens an’ shit?”

“Yeah, I’m into aliens,” he started nonchalantly. And, although he felt the chatter starting to manifest, he figured it was too damn hot to hold back. “Like you know in Star Wars. I saw that once.”

He’d seen it three legitimate times. Four since he snuck in the last time.

“And they got these aliens in the Cantina Band. That’s an annoying song, true. But, the aliens are better than  _ Star Trek _ , man. They got like antennas and horns and, I get that that’s all in the movie, but  _ c’mon _ , aliens are totally real. Not like Area 51 stuff, ‘cause they too smart to get captured by us. They have UFOs and Millennium Falcons that travel at the speed of light-”

“Uh-huh,” Delroy interrupted. “And Leia, that girl you in love wi’.”

“ _ Pssh! _ Naw, man _. Stupid _ . Why’d you ask me about aliens?”

“I heard you talkin’ ‘bout how your Fantastic Man lost your alien record after your music competition thing.”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Ra Ra recalled how there had been somewhat of a scuffle after the competition. Kleptos attend DJ Offs too. And there went the LP.

“Special Delivery, Raul,” Delroy started, pulling out a shiny square from behind the counter. On it, just like Ra Ra remembered seeing it, was the iconic typography, white on black. Within it held trumpets and drums and spaceships and galaxies.

Damn, if Ra Ra was emotional like Zeke, he’d probably start crying.

“It ain’t free, though,” Delroy said, knocking Ra Ra out of his stupor. “It’ll go for the low-low price of thirteen bucks.”

Ra Ra had nineteen dollars left and there was nothing more to think over.

And, as he walked outside the shop to the sticky heat and the burning sun, he considered this one of those times. The Force was designed to right the wrongs of the Universe.  
  
Smiling broadly, he considered this one of those times.


	2. A Path to your Destiny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewatched The Get Down for the 3rd time so far. Until we get more episodes, it's gonna stay my go-to show for some time.   
> Anyway, have some bad poetry. (Whatever. It's supposed to be bad. My version of Ezekiel was, like, 11 when he wrote it so I'm not a bad poet. It's called method writing, I think, lol)
> 
> And, introducing Boo Boo!

Ra Ra sometimes considered himself the sentimental type. 

It wasn’t like with sister. He wasn’t the sort of person who’d cry over losing their favorite stuffed animal like Yolanda did when she was ten over her companion Beary, the Bear. The general consensus was that she left it at Pa-Paw and Ma-Maw’s house in Newark. That same year, there had been something of a falling out in the relationship between Ra Ra’s grandparents and his dad. They hadn’t been back to Newark since.

But, he kind of cared about old things too much. He hoarded; his growing comic book collection attested to that. It’s like the strong connection to old toys Boo Boo had towards his Adventure Team action figures or felt the way Dizzee felt with his book of tags or like how Yolanda felt towards her Barbies that she would swear up and down she threw out years ago.

He held old things sacred, something that his mom found concerning. It was getting difficult to clean his room that he shared with Boo Boo since he couldn’t find it within himself to throw things away. 

It wasn’t a real problem yet, according to him. He hadn’t yet taken the first step which was admitting it out loud.

Yet, very little of his collection could compare to Zeke’s middle school poems that were part really great and half cheesy shit.

Ra Ra flipped from laying down on his stomach to lying down on his back, his eyes still on the piece of notebook paper he was looking at, previously dark blue lines fading into a sea foam color with age. He figured it was like reverse tanning what he was doing. Those few times he had gone to those especially fancy beaches, he remembered seeing all these white people turn from right side up to upside down with a timer, slowly becoming redder and redder.

His eyes still on the old paper, he read the words of an eleven year old Ezekiel Figuero.

 

_ Colors _

_ Our skies are gray here in the Bronx _

_ But in the night, it shines. _

_ Manhattan's lights makes it bright like day _

_ Making even ugly look fine. _

 

_ Our skies are yellow here in the Bronx _

_ And even orange lights the way. _

_ Burning buildings come crumbling down. _

_ But I hope my house still stays. _

 

_ Our skies are red here in the Bronx. _

_ Our sunsets are the best. _

_ We don’t get rainbows most of the time, _

_ But our sunrises say we’re blessed. _

 

_ Our skies aren’t blue here in the Bronx. _

_ But blue is overrated. _

_ We got tons of colors no one else has got _

_ Like God had us specially painted. _

 

When Zeke showed him the poem all those years ago on the pile of gravel their middle school called a playground, he had handed him the paper and performed it without looking at the words. Ra Ra looked back fondly on that memory a lot considering, when he and Zeke were eleven, Ra Ra was the tall one.

Plus, the poem was cheesy as hell and they both laughed about it when Zeke was done. 

Putting the poem down, he crossed his arms behind his head and concentrated on feeling cold.

Not even seconds after, the door to his room burst open and Ra Ra was greeted with even hotter air from the hallway. He wasn’t sure how that worked to begin with. How can it be even  _ hotter _ in the hallway?   


“Yo, Ra!” Boo Boo called to him, slamming the door behind them. Boo Boo did that sometimes, taking in freedom of slamming the doors to the house while his parents weren’t home. He, like all the Kipling siblings, learned early on the consequences of slamming the door when their parents were in earshot.

“What’chu doing here, Boo?” Ra Ra mumbled, sweat pooling in areas he couldn’t stand sweating in.

“Shao said we got practice today,” Boo Boo said, walking across the room to grab a few a dark yellow rain jacket. “We gots to learn how to  _ dance _ , yo!” At “dance”, Boo Boo spun on his heels and snapped his fingers. “I got twinkle toes, Ra!”

“It’s a Saturday,” was Ra Ra’s only response.

“It’s  _ summer _ ,” Boo Boo said, rolling his eyes. “Get Down Brothers don’t sleep. Get your ass to our spot.”

Ra Ra groaned. Slowly sitting up on his bed, Boo Boo said one last thing before leaving: “Also, it’s raining, man.”

“Oh,” Ra Ra wiped away sweat from his forehead. Eyeing the yellow rain jacket Boo Boo was putting on, he frowned. “Is that my jacket?”

“I can’t find mine,” Boo Boo said from the hallway. “Ask Yolanda from an umbrella!”

“Don’t wear my stuff!” Ra Ra called back. Ra Ra didn’t think he was this bad at taking Dizzee’s stuff when he was younger.

Looking down at Zeke’s five-year-old poem. Folding it back into its familiar creases, he tossed it back into his stack of hoarded papers.

The universe seemed to have an obvious great path for Zeke. Everyone could see it.  
  
He just wondered if, mayube, the universe would be as generous to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imma start researching 70s slang. It's supposed to be a period piece.
> 
> Three times of watching The Get Down and I still feel like this dialogue is cringe, but I'm trying and that's what counts :)
> 
> Stay tuned for the next update. It'll introduce Mylene and her Soul Madonnas!

**Author's Note:**

> Ha Ha, what is 70s slang anyway?


End file.
